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Yes! & today in their defense press conference, Dumsfeld said things were "going well in Iraq"... Yesterday saw 25 separate attacks against our soldiers, and 6 dead British troops, coming on the heals of the Syrian border dispute...
Propaganda at it's finest!! But the British and those British families have the right to be outraged by that statement...
Then there's Young Noelle:
http://politicalhumor.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.voicebygonzo.com%2Fothe....
Sorry last potshot at the Bush kids...
Later! Have fun... :)
That's "news"?? 8^}
That's the question I asked you. Do you insinuate a nexis between 9/11 and Iraq??..
I agree completely! And when I heard about the Bush twins angst. I thought they were not atypical of other kids and the alcohol incident should be handled as a private family matter. But politics is politics and that certainly doesn't make it "right"... Remember what the media did to Chelsea as a little girl of 12 or 13? And now Howard Deans son... Politics should leave rival's kids out of it.
No one has perfect kids, and you know what happens when you "spit in the wind" - especially where kids are concerned...
An exclusive excerpt from our First Lady Laura Bush's new book about raising her daughters Jenna and Barbara:
"Bloody Marys For the Soul"
Raising Christian Young Ladies When You Only Have Twenty Minutes and Two Shot Glasses
Nothing demands more of any passive-aggressive woman's attention than rebellious children (unless, of course, you have an underachiever husband with an addictive personality who is getting enormous pressure from his overbearing mother to get elected president). Gals, it is so important that you make time for your daughters! I try to free-up time by paying absolutely no attention to what I wear. As a dutiful mother, I set aside a full 20 minutes a month for my children. This time is sacred (unless, of course, an emergency pops up – like the time I had to run a Q-tip along the tops of all the baseboards in the governor's mansion or the time George's various prescriptions were calling out to be Dewey decimalized).
When my daughters Jenna and, um, a, -- well, the other one – packed their Samsonite and flasks for college, I decided to use their 7.4 minutes still unused that month to try something new – talking with them. So, I sat them down (well, actually, as I recall, Jenna fell down) and as I nervously drank something that only smelled like single-malt Scotch from my 24 oz. "What Would Jenna Drink?" coffee mug, I revealed my secrets to raising Christian ladies in a political family. (Being a resourceful homemaker, I also used the novelty of actually being in the same room with my daughters to Clorox a few yellowed bras so the afternoon wouldn't be a total waste.)
-- Mrs. George W. (Laura) Bush
It is important that children learn to share at an early age. Start with a fifth of Cuervo Gold.
Don't let your daughters see your husband's mother in daylight until you have convinced them that her genes are recessive.
Don't leave a child behind. Move to DC and leave BOTH of them behind!
Tell the housekeeper to keep $1,000 (cash) in her purse at all times for bail. (This will save you from giving your girls your unlisted cell phone number.)
There is absolutely no excuse for a Christian young lady to be caught drinking liquor in public – especially when you consider that Seagram's 7 looks just like Original Listerine when it is decanted into a 16 oz. plastic mouthwash bottle!
Have their father, preferably sober, sit down with your girls and tell them that it is one thing to have "youthful indiscretions," but they can't use adolescence as an excuse forever. Indeed, when a teenager gets to be around 40 or 50 years old, it is probably time to cut back on the binge drinking and start using those cute little cocaine spoons for stirring amaretto Coffee-Mate into your decaf.
If your daughter(s) drink too much, it is probably best to avoid lecturing when (if) they get back home. After all, it will inevitably lead to the typical teenage comeback "Well, at least I didn't KILL my boyfriend while driving drunk like you did Mother!" What mother hasn't dreaded those very words?
During your daughters' all-important years ending high school, try to spend over 250 nights out of town on the campaign trail talking to local television morning shows about how important your family is to you.
Learn the difference between words "arrest" and "citation." This simple information can save you a world of embarrassment when friends or Jim Lehrer ask you: "So, which one of the twins was arrested last night?"
Sometimes, children can interfere with your codependent nurturing of a father who jealously guards his right to be the constant center of attention. In such situations, a compromise is needed. Start by completely ignoring your children. After all, before you know it, they will be off to college (and the dean's headache), but you are stuck with a needy husband forever!
Remember: The trick to being a political parent is Plausible Deniability. Spend as little time with your children as possible. That way, when you hear about their outrageous antics, your on-camera reaction will look like something that passes for surprise, which your staff can later characterize as something that passes for denial.
If called in for a potentially awkward so-called "urgent" parent-professor conference, have Carl Rove prepare talking points to keep the professor off balance. Even if you haven't taught since the invention of Post-Its -- and speak as if the most eloquent book you ever read could fit on one – respond to every pointed question with a glazed look and "I'm a teacher, too." If you feel bold, add something risky like "And I think education is important."
Children are competitive. If one of them goes to an Ivy League school and the other can't get into the Waco School of Cosmetology without her grandfather pulling strings, remind the one not going to Yale: "Honey, you're a Bush; no one expects you to be bright."
I always tell my gals that the press is the opposite of their father: They know more than they talk about. Don't trust them. But, darn it, if they haven't learned how to hide their boozing and drug use by watching Daddy and me, I don't know when they will ever learn!
To teach children how to treat the servants, start with the Secret Service. While it may seem amusing to lead government agents on a high-speed car chase through a toll both near New York City or bray obscenities at them from a bar, such youthful fun can come back to haunt you when you need them to bail a boyfriend out of jail – or simply run out to a convenience store for rolling paper, Slim Jims and condoms.
Make sure your girls know (before they start "dating") that it is a Christian lady's duty to approach her man's shortcomings with patience and forgiveness – and his vomit with rubber gloves and Lysol.
Allow children to learn from their own mistakes. For example, encourage them in the cute idea that their father drank like a dockside sailor for years without getting a DUI. That way, when they get caught, it will be such a shock to find out that behavior has consequences, they may quit "filling up the tank" before driving in only another 10 or 20 years, too!
It is important for children to pretend their parents are happy. There is no need to burden them with lies about how much you missed them since they left the nest. For example, never mention missing them in interviews. Instead, use that airtime to talk about your pets, one of which you've only had for a month or two. After all, it is easier to have a pet quietly put down if it makes a mess on camera.
Being the offspring of a rich political dynasty is no excuse for not sounding like a sharecropper. Remember: no one will resent you for being one of the most privileged people in America as long as you pronounce it "Ah-mur-ka." But Jenna, you can overdo the "common touch," dear.
Visit our First Lady's "Guide to Republican Glamour"
Jenna & Barbara: The Camp David Intervention: The Exclusive Transcript!
What Would Jenna Drink? Jenna's Favorite Drink Recipe!
Austin, Texas 7-11 Apologizes For Calling Police During Robbery: PRESS RELEASE
America's Best Christian Interviews Laura Bush!
BUSH TWINS TURN 21; WILL FREE UP LAW ENFORCEMENT FOR WAR ON TERROR
Ridge Burns Twins’ Fake I.D.s In D.C. Ceremony
Barbara and Jenna Bush reached the legal drinking age of 21 today, a development which homeland security officials said would free up law enforcement resources for the ongoing war on terror.
“For the last two years, our resources have been severely strained by Barbara and Jenna sneaking into T.G.I. Friday’s and other bars,” said Homeland Security Secretary nominee Tom Ridge.
“The first day of their tenure as legal drinkers is a red-letter day for all of us in law enforcement,” Ridge added.
In a jubilant Washington ceremony, Mr. Ridge burned the boozy twins’ fake I.D.s while representative of the department’s 22 separate agencies looked on, cheering when the fake I.D.s burst into flame.
CIA Director George Tenet agreed with Mr. Ridge, adding that the Bush twins becoming legal drinkers would be a “major boon” to the war on terror.
“Now that our agents won’t have to spend so much time looking for Barb and Jenna, maybe it will be possible for them to find Osama bin Laden,” Mr. Tenet said.
FBI Director Robert Mueller, whose agency had often been heavily criticized in the past for not catching the Bush twins and bringing them to justice, also appeared to be breathing a sigh of relief today.
“Until they turned 21, we at the FBI were living in mortal fear of Ladies’ Night,” Mr. Mueller said. “In Austin, that can mean every night of the week.”
For their part, the Bush twins did not participate in the I.D.-burning ceremony, but later released a brief, incoherent statement.
**** BOROWITZ THANKSGIVING LIST ****
Log in tomorrow for Andy Borowitz’s list of things to be thankful for this year.
Email this story
Calif. law intended to help Holocaust survivors rejected
Wire Service, Associated Press June 23, 2003
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court struck down a California law intended to help Holocaust survivors collect on insurance policies from the Nazi era, ruling today that the law was unconstitutional meddling by a state in foreign affairs.
The court divided 5-4 to side with the Bush administration, which had urged the court to strike down the law. The administration said the law hurts the government's efforts to speak "with one voice" in international affairs.
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=8575021&BRD=1817&PAG=461&dept_id=68561&rfi...
You are of that conservative, far right-wing, Bible thumping "majority"???
We have so few around here that the group as a whole remains an enigma to me...
Thank Heavens!!
The CONS must really be feeling threatened by Dean and his moderate platform. They are already attacking fiercely...
Or should I say nitpicking?...
You are obviously one of those right-wing wingnuts who's "faith" in Young George is absolute...
Are they really having the RNC Convention on September 11th??
That is the height of political exploitation, imo. Disgusting!!
The 'New American Empire' and those who used 9/11 to advance their ideology.....The American Enterprise Institute and their vision of American cultural supremacy... A Must Read!!
The Men Who Stole the Show
By Jim Lobe and Tom Barry, Foreign Policy in Focus
November 4, 2002
When he first saw the excerpts leaked to The New York Times in spring 1992, Sen. Joseph Biden (D-DE) was horrified and denounced the document as a prescription for "literally a Pax Americana." The leak, a draft Defense Policy Guidance (DPG) on U.S. grand strategy through the 1990s, was stunning in the clarity and ambition of its vision for a new U.S. foreign and military policy. Written in the aftermath of the Gulf War by two relatively obscure political appointees in the Pentagon's policy department of the Bush Sr. administration, the draft DPG called for U.S. military preeminence over Eurasia by preventing the rise of any potentially hostile power and a policy of preemption against states suspected of developing weapons of mass destruction. It foretold a world in which U.S. military intervention overseas would become "a constant feature" and failed to even mention the United Nations.
Although softened in its final form at the insistence of then National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft and Secretary of State James Baker, the draft DPG occupied a central place in the hearts and minds of its two authors, Paul Wolfowitz and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, and their boss, then Pentagon chief Dick Cheney. A decade later, theory was transformed into practice following the devastating terrorist attack on Sept. 11. By then, Dick Cheney had already become the most powerful vice president in U.S. history, and the draft DPG's two authors, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Cheney's chief of staff and national security adviser, Lewis Libby, had moved to the center of foreign policy-making in the Bush administration. They, along with Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld, have led a coalition of forces that has successfully engineered what former UN ambassador Richard Holbrooke recently described as a "radical break with 55 years of bipartisan tradition" in U.S. foreign policy.
That break came as a great shock to most analysts. Candidate George W. Bush's talk of pursuing a "humble" foreign policy, as well as the narrowness of his electoral victory, suggested that Bush would likely take his cue from his father's administration. Although the younger Bush's stress on U.S. "national interests" and his skepticism about nation-building and peacekeeping suggested a likely pullback from the Clinton-Gore team's more globalist and multilateral aspirations, most pundits saw a likely return to the cautious, balance-of-power realism that characterized his father's tenure. That assessment seemed even more assured after Bush selected retired General Colin Powell as his secretary of state and Condoleezza Rice as national security adviser. Both were protégés of Brent Scowcroft, in many ways the dean of the realist establishment going back all the way to Gerald Ford for whom he also served as national security adviser. Those assumptions proved dead wrong, however, particularly in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks.
In engineering the radical break in U.S. foreign policy, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld and Cheney relied on a handful of think tanks and front groups that have closely interlocking directorates and shared origins in the right-wing and neo-conservative organizations of the 1970s. Organizations such as the Project for a New American Century (PNAC), the Center for Security Policy (CSP) and the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) have supplied the administration with a steady stream of policy advice and also with the men-and they are virtually all men-to steer the ship of state on its radical new course. These men are by no means new recruits to the foreign policy elite. They cut their teeth on some of the most fateful foreign policy debates of the last thirty years. Their motto was "peace through strength," and they took great pride in their credentials as militant anti-communists and champions of U.S. military power. Until now, their greatest moments came during Reagan's first term in which most of them held high office. But now, in a world without the Soviet Union, their ambitions are much greater.
As reflected in the draft DPG, these forces first saw their opportunity in the "unipolar moment" that followed the Gulf War. But they were stymied by the "conservative crack-up" after the Soviet collapse, not to mention the cautious realism of the Bush Sr. administration itself. As a result, much of the 1990s marked a period of great frustration for these men who had nothing but contempt for Clinton's fashionable talk of transnational issues such as climate change, HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases, humanitarian intervention, peacekeeping, conflict prevention, social and environmental standards for the global economy and the creation of new multilateral mechanisms like the International Criminal Court (ICC). They regarded these transnational challenges and multilateral responses as nothing less than new constraints on Washington's freedom of action and diversions from the real task of identifying and confronting potential military rivals for its primacy. To them, American foreign policy under Clinton, which they sometimes called "globaloney," was dangerously unfocused.
At the same time, these forces grew alarmed at the strong isolationist streak in many of the Republicans who took control of Congress after the mid-term elections in 1994. While they applauded the freshmen's contempt for the United Nations and other multilateral agencies, they also fretted about the growing Republican opposition to any form of military engagement abroad, especially in places like the Balkans that they deemed vital to the U.S. national interest. They loved the new Republicans' unilateralism, but deplored their disengagement.
Focusing on the "New American Century"
In 1997, an influential group of neo-conservatives, social conservatives and representatives of what Eisenhower referred to as the military-industrial complex came together to form Project for a New American Century (PNAC). Conservatives had failed to "confidently advance a strategic vision for America's role in the world," the group lamented in its statement of principles. It continued, "We aim to change this. We aim to make the case and rally support for American global leadership." Noting what they called "the essential elements of the Reagan administration's success," namely "a strong military" ready to meet "present and future challenges," they proudly declared: "A Reaganite policy of military strength and moral clarity may not be fashionable today. But it is necessary if the U.S. is to build on the success of this past century and ensure our security and greatness in the next." Among the twenty-five signers were Wolfowitz, Libby, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Elliott Abrams, Zalmay Khalilzad and other right-wing luminaries who five years later would use the Sept. 11 outrage to realize their long-held dreams of a new American empire.
Not a think tank like the Heritage Foundation or AEI with the capacity to develop detailed policy recommendations, PNAC has acted as a front group that issues timely statements, often in the form of open letters to the president. Its influence signals the degree to which neoconservatives have charted the main outlines and trajectory of the Bush foreign policy. Founded by Weekly Standard pundits William Kristol and Robert Kagan, PNAC is the latest incarnation of a series of predominantly neoconservative groups such as the Coalition for a Democratic Majority (CDM) and the Committee on the Present Danger (CPD). In the 1970s, these groups played key roles in helping to marshal diverse right-wing constituencies around a common foreign and defense policy and organize highly sophisticated public and media campaigns in pursuit of their goals. Their main targets of the time were Jimmy Carter, détente and arms control agreements with the Soviet Union, but they also used their zest for ideological combat, their political savvy and propaganda skills to prepare the ground for and later oversee the more radical policies pursued by the incoming Reagan administration, including Star Wars, the anti-communist crusades in Central America, southern Africa and Afghanistan, and the creation of a "strategic alliance" with Israel. Largely sidelined under the elder Bush and Clinton, these same forces-in many cases, the same individuals-who served under Reagan and then again under the younger Bush spent much of the 1990s trying to reconstitute a new coalition of the kind that dominated Reagan's first term.
In a 1996 essay in Foreign Affairs, "Toward a Neo-Reaganite Foreign Policy," PNAC directors Robert Kagan and William Kristol signaled that the right was preparing a new foreign policy agenda that would seize control of the "unipolar moment" and extend it indefinitely into the next century. During the presidential campaign in 2000, Kagan and Kristol edited Present Dangers: Crisis and Opportunities in American Foreign and Defense Policy, a PNAC book that included chapters written by many of the leading neoconservative strategists and academics, including Richard Perle, Reuel Marc Gerecht, Peter Rodman, Elliott Abrams, Fredrick Kagan, William Bennett and Paul Wolfowitz. This book, with its call for a policy of "regime change" in Iraq, China, North Korea and Iran, its prescriptions for maintaining "American preeminence," its recommendations to build global missile defense systems and to distance Washington from arms control treaties and its pro-Likud position, were presented as a blueprint for a new Republican administration. The extent that the Bush administration has adopted this agenda and integrated its authors into its foreign policy brain trust illustrates the success of PNAC-a group that received no attention during the campaign and despite its continuing influence still remains in the shadows of the public debate about the direction of U.S. foreign policy.
Much as its forebears did twenty-five years ago, PNAC in the late 1990s successfully rallied key right-wing personalities-including men from the Christian Right like Gary Bauer and other social conservatives like William Bennett-behind their imperial vision of U.S. supremacy. This was no small achievement, for the Christian Right was far more interested in moral and cultural issues than in foreign policy during the 1980s and early 1990s. Moreover, much of that constituency had been attracted to right-wing gadfly Patrick Buchanan who shared its "traditional values," but who also strongly opposed the Gulf War and has long deplored the more imperial, neoconservative influence in the Republican Party. [b[Two other groups, the Center for Security Policy and Empower America played a similar role with respect to forging a new coalition behind the goal of U.S. military and cultural supremacy.
Whatever the validity of U.S. military supremacy theory as a legitimate or effective defense posture, the ideology has immediate rewards for U.S. weapons manufacturers. This nexus of military strategists and thee military industry is epitomized by the right-wing Center for Security Policy with its close connections to both military contractors and the Pentagon. The Center's director Frank Gaffney, one of the original signatories of the PNAC statement in 1997, rejoiced that his group's "peace through strength" principles have once again found a place in U.S. government. Like the Reagan years, when many of the center's current associates directed U.S. military policy, the present administration includes a large number of members of the Center's National Security Advisory Council. An early member of the Center's board, Dick Cheney, is now vice president, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was a recipient of the Center's Keeper of the Flame award.
Since the 1970s, neoconservatives had been exploring the global-local links of the "culture war." In the view of the Christian Right, core American values were under attack by a liberal cultural elite that espoused secular humanism and ethical relativism. For neoconservatives, however, the culture war was an international one that threatened the entire Judeo-Christian culture. One of earliest groups taking this position was the Ethics and Public Policy Center, which was established in 1976 "to clarify and reinforce the bond between Judeo-Christian moral tradition and the public policy debate over domestic and foreign policy issues." The Ethics and Public Policy Center, where Elliott Abrams was an associate in the 1990s before he joined the Bush administration, explored the common moral ground (and common concerns) that Jewish and Catholic conservatives shared with the Christian Right. Long a theme in American politics, the idea of America's cultural supremacy and the need to defend it against mounting international attack had by the late 1990s become a powerful theme in the U.S. political debate. Neo-conservative historian Samuel Huntington provided theoretical cover for this paranoid sense of cultural supremacy in his influential The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order.
Former "drug czar" and Education Secretary William J. Bennett, another signatory of the PNAC 1997 statement, has had the most success in making the local-global links in the culture war. Together with Jack Kemp, Bennett in 1999 founded Empower America, a right-wing policy group that argues for domestic and foreign policies informed by conservative moral values. Since Sept. 11, Bennett's Empower America, together with subsidiary groups, has propagated the Bush administration's own message of a moral and military crusade against evil. As part of its campaign to highlight the moral character of Bush's foreign policy, Empower America formed a new group called Americans for Victory Over Terrorism (AVOT). In a full-page ad in The New York Times, AVOT chairman Bennett warned: "The threats we face are both external and internal." Within the United States are "those who are attempting to use this opportunity [9/11] to promulgate their agenda of 'blame America first'." In its pronouncement, AVOT identified U.S. public opinion as the key battleground in the war against America's external and internal threats. "Our goal," declared AVOT, "is to address the present threats so as to eradicate future terrorism and defeat ideologies that support it." Also in the forefront of focusing attention on internal threats has been Lynne Cheney, wife of the vice president and an associate at the American Enterprise Institute, who played a lead role in founding the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) that singled out professors deemed not sufficiently patriotic.
Under the tutelage of neo-conservatives like Elliott Abrams and under the guiding hand of William Bennett, social conservatives, particularly those associated with the Christian Right, have become new internationalists. Looking beyond the culture wars at home, they found new reasons for a rightist internationalism abroad. Building on the Biblical foundations for an apocalyptic showdown in the Middle East, the Christian Right has fully supported the neo-conservative agenda on U.S.-Israel relations. In their literature and Internet presence, socially conservative groups like Empower America and the Foundation for the Defense of Democracy place special emphasis on the righteousness of the campaign against the Palestinians by the Likud Party of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. Other galvanizing issues for social conservatives are the persecution of Christians abroad, especially in Islamic countries and China, sex trafficking and "yellow peril" threat of communist China.
Bringing It All Together
As during the Reagan administration, the right-wing think tanks have played a key role in shaping the new policy framework. Especially important has been the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute whose most prominent member of the Bush administration is Richard Perle, the chair of Rumsfeld's Defense Planning Board. Perle, a supporter of PNAC, helped establish The Center for Security Policy and the increasingly influential Jewish Institute for National Security (JINSA). Over the years, AEI has been in the forefront of calling for preemptive military attacks against rogue states and has denounced as "appeasement" all efforts by Washington and its European allies to "engage" North Korea, Iran, or Iraq. The Bush administration has embraced virtually all of the policy positions that the AEI has promoted on the Middle East. Coursing through AEI policy analysis – and now through the Bush administration – is a profound belief in the inherent goodness and redemptive mission of the United States, criticism of the moral cowardice of "liberals" and "European elites," an imperative to support Israel against the "implacable hatred" of Muslims, and a conviction in the primacy of military power in an essentially Hobbesian world. Although not yet part of the official rhetoric, AEI's belief that a conflict with China is inevitable is also one held by the hawks in the administration.
On the editorial pages of the Weekly Standard (published by PNAC cofounder William Kristol), The Wall Street Journal, National Review, Commentary Magazine and The Washington Times, as well as in the nationally syndicated columns by William Safire, Michael Kelly and Charles Krauthammer, the State Department (particularly its Near East bureau) came under steady attack. But even within the State Department, the new foreign policy radicals had set up camp. Over Powell's objections, Bush appointed John Bolton, an ultra-unilateralist ideologue and former vice president of the American Enterprise Institute, as undersecretary of state for arms control and international security.
For the most part, the political right led by the neoconservatives has focused on the need for America to assert its military and diplomatic power – a focus underscored by the war on terrorism. In marked contrast to the Clinton years, the neoconservative strategists together with the hawks have sidelined the public debate about globalization. Instead of fretting over social and environmental standards in the global economy, the economic focus is on securing U.S. national interests, particularly energy resources, and thereby ensuring continued U.S. economic supremacy. A continued weakening of the U.S. economy and a rising concern of U.S. military over-reach is contributing to some fracturing of the right.
This small group of right-wing strategists, ideologues, and operatives in right-wing think tanks, advocacy groups and the news media has captured U.S. foreign and military policy. At issue is not so much that this shift in foreign policy has been engineered by a narrow elite – given that foreign policy has traditionally been the province of conservative and liberal elites – but rather the implications of this sharp turn to the right. Clearly, a new foreign policy vision was needed to match the new global realities. But is this show of American supremacy the grand strategy that best serves U.S. national interests and security? In the end, the U.S. electorate will need to decide if they want this show of supremacy and power to go on. As Americans we will need to decide if we now feel more secure, if our economic and moral interests are better represented now, and if a foreign policy based on extending U.S. supremacy makes us proud to be Americans.
Tom Barry is a senior policy analyst at the Interhemispheric Resource Center (IRC, online at www.irc-online.org) and codirector of Foreign Policy In Focus. Jim Lobe is a frequent contributor to FPIF and to Inter Press Service. A version of this report will appear as a chapter in Power Trip, a new FPIF book edited by John Feffer, forthcoming from Seven Stories Press.
© 2003 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved. Reproduction by Syndication Service only.
With so many truly good and exceptional people having selflessly given their lives in the hopes of saving others, how do we allow the Bush Administration to use the tragedy of September 11th to promote a bogus war on an unrelated country under false pretenses? It is totally unconscionable...
Into the Fire
Bruce Springsteen, from the Rising...
The sky was falling and streaked with blood
I heard you calling me, then you disappeared into the dust
Up the stairs, into the fire
Up the stairs, into the fire
I need your kiss, but love and duty called you someplace higher
Somewhere up the stairs, into the fire
May your strength give us strength
May your faith give us faith
May your hope give us hope
May your love give us love
May your strength give us strength
May your faith give us faith
May your hope give us hope
May your love give us love
You gave your love to see, in fields of red and autumn brown
You gave your love to me and lay your young body down
Up the stairs, into the fire
Up the stairs, into the fire
I need you near, but love and duty called you someplace higher
Somewhere up the stairs, into the fire
May your strength give us strength
May your faith give us faith
May your hope give us hope
May your love give us love
May your strength give us strength
May your faith give us faith
May your hope give us hope
May your love give us love
May your strength give us strength
May your faith give us faith
May your hope give us hope
May your love give us love
It was dark, too dark to see, you held me in the light you gave
You lay your hand on me
Then walked into the darkness of your smoky grave
Up the stairs, into the fire
Up the stairs, into the fire
I need your kiss, but love and duty called you someplace higher
Somewhere up the stairs, into the fire
May your strength give us strength
May your faith give us faith
May your hope give us hope
May your love give us love
May your strength give us strength
May your faith give us faith
May your hope give us hope
May your love give us love
May your strength give us strength
May your faith give us faith
May your hope give us hope
May your love give us love
May your strength give us strength
May your faith give us faith
May your hope give us hope
May your love give us love
May your love bring us love
Maine, this is "faith" and righteousness but it is not their brand of "faith" or righteousness...
Springsteen is gifted.
Where have the all the die-hard conservatives gone?...
http://www.investorshub.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=908977
Yes, but in Bush's America, anyone who questions authority is un-American or unpatriotic, or worse... Remember,
"with us or with the terrorists"??... But would you expect otherwise from one of such fundamentalist mentality.
Those "breaths of fresh air" have to speak up rather than allow themselves to be bamboozled by the far right. But if they speak out, they risk the support of the conservative voting block. It's a political catch 22 for centrists and left leaning representatives.
Ralph Reed denies White House, Enron job tie
January 26, 2002 Posted: 1:27 PM EST (1827 GMT)
{Ralph Reed -- Former Pres of the Christian Coalition}
(CNN) -- The White House acknowledged Friday that in 1997, as George W. Bush was deciding whether to run for president, his senior political adviser Karl Rove recommended GOP strategist Ralph Reed for a consulting job with Enron Corp. Reed, former head of the Christian Coalition, went to work for Enron as a strategist, making from $10,000 to $20,000 a month, according to The New York Times
http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/01/26/enron.reed.cnna/?related
Entrenched Stupidity Part II
By Christopher Adamo on 06/21/03
Printer friendly version
Although unprincipled Republican pragmatists are likely to do significant harm to the conservative movement through their morally rudderless philosophies and naivety, another more sinister force is at work within the party. And it can immeasurably exceed the damage done by clueless pragmatists.
Certain astute members of the counterculture recognized, during the past decade or so, that tides were beginning to turn against leftist ideologies of the ‘60’s, most of which had long been institutionalized in the Democrat Party. Being well aware that a party-line fight between old-fashioned morality and their “progressive” agenda would merely mean massive losses for the Democrats, countercultural activists recognized that their best hope lay in infiltrating the Republican Party.
During his ascendancy to the White House, Ronald Reagan advocated a concept he termed as “The Republican Big Tent.” His idea was to lead so nobly and powerfully that others would be compelled to fall into line behind him, forsaking their own special interests in service to the worthy cause he advanced. But since Reagan left office, a disturbing counterfeit has been substituted for his leadership philosophy. This phony “big tent” is implemented by inviting disparate groups into the party, and then disingenuously claiming to represent all of them. In reality, the more a party attempts to do so, the less principle it truly upholds.
In the long run, whenever the party seeks to embrace both high and low standards, only the low standards prevail, eventually to the total exclusion of anything higher. Committed liberals within Republican ranks understand this concept all too well. Consider a few examples.
In January 2001, an inaugural celebration was held by homosexual supporters of President Bush. A key speaker at that event was retired Senator Alan Simpson (R-Wyoming), who praised the attendees for their involvement in the President’s election. According to Simpson, since their number in Florida (60,000) exceeded the margin of victory, George W. Bush “owes his presidency” to the homosexuals. Using Simpson’s logic, President Bush perhaps owes his victory to left-handed cab drivers, being that in Florida, with a population of more than 13 million, their numbers likely exceed the margin of victory as well.
Logical absurdities aside, the significance of the event, and Simpson’s involvement in it, should not be underestimated. Among the groups represented at the inaugural gathering, and increasingly among Republican circles, is the homosexual “Log Cabin Coalition.” Though most decent individuals will likely presume its name as a reference to Abraham Lincoln’s humble beginnings, in truth it suggests something far different, and far too revolting to be described in any detail. These people are not about the business of building bridges of commonality with conservative Republicans. The double entendre of their organization's title bears inarguable proof that they are infiltrating, with the goal of changing the very character of the party.
In August of the same year, Simpson co-authored "The Cody Statement", which defines the “Republican Unity Coalition”, a homosexual advocacy group seeking to operate within GOP ranks, reshaping the law in favor of the homosexual agenda. Judging from their mindset, it is clear that “unity” is only possible when every last vestige of morality is purged from the party. According to Simpson, laws restrictive to homosexual activity are “contrary to American values protecting personal liberty and opposing discrimination.”
Hardly a Republican Ralph Nader, Simpson is by no means considered “fringe” among the GOP establishment. On the contrary, he is widely regarded as “mainstream”, and even “conservative”, despite once having described Christian Conservatives as “a blight on the Republican Party.” Nor is he alone in the GOP. In recent weeks, RNC chairman and Bush campaign chief Marc Racicot met with homosexual advocates, whom he later celebrated in glowing terms, saving his scorn and derision for Conservative Christian leaders who expressed their dismay at the tenor of his earlier remarks.
White House political “strategist” Karl Rove has also weighed in. On receiving news of the four million Conservative Christian voters, who had been expected to support George W. Bush but deserted him on Election Day, Rove postulated that the party might simply have to look elsewhere in order to make up the difference. But a deficit of that enormity isn’t easily overcome. One does not merely recruit replacements for four million disillusioned voters at the nearest INS checkpoint. Just what is the supposed method to this madness? Through their combined efforts, Rove, Racicot and Simpson may have stumbled upon a winning political strategy… for the Democrats.
Copyright 2003 American Daily unless otherwise noted.
edit: Robertson, Falwell, Reed, and the others turn my stomach, literally, because I view them as politically opportunistic charlatans, perverting the essence of Judeo-Christianity. And let's not forget they have made big bucks promoting their far-right, theo-political ideology. There is much "power" in their political influence as well. By adopting the absolute literal interpretation, they have completely lost the greater Biblical message, imo. They have also forgotten or patently reject the principals on which this country was founded.
While I am sure there are many, many wonderful evangelical Christians (honestly!), their leadership leaves much to be desired. Folks calling themselves Evangelical or Christian Conservatives make up the largest voting block in the US. They tend to be hardline, ultra-conservatives, and as a group, and with their leadership, they are a strong political lobby. Given their sheer numbers and the strength of their lobby, one could reasonably argue they are pulling the political and policy strings in this country -- raising the Constitutional issue of "Separation" in an indirect way...
The more centrist or left leaning voters (the religious "wrong"??..)have an uphill battle, to say the least. Americans have become too complacent to "battle" over political ideology, democracy or our Constitutional values. And lets face it, the snippets and sound bites of the far-right sound good when taken at face value. Who could argue personal or parental responsibility, or "family values". It is not till one looks at the deeper meaning or agenda that moderate's alarm bells sound. Eventually, tho, the far-right will cross the line of all decency and mainstream America will respond. I hope....
A Missing 727!! ?...
Missing Cargo Jet Prompts Africa Search
Tuesday June 24, 2003 7:09 AM
By DINA KRAFT
Associated Press Writer
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (AP) - In a brazen act, two men climbed aboard an idle Boeing 727 cargo jet in Angola last month and flew off into the African sky without a trace.
The disappearance touched off searches across the continent and, in the post-Sept. 11 era, prompted worries about why the plane was taken.
U.S. investigators and civil aviation officials in Africa said the plane most likely was taken for a criminal endeavor such as drug or weapons smuggling, but they have not ruled out the possibility it was stolen for use in a terrorist attack.
``There is no particular information suggesting that the disappearance of the aircraft is linked to terrorists or terrorism, but it's still something that obviously we would like to get to the bottom of,'' said a State Department spokesman, Philip T. Reeker.
U.S. officials speaking on condition of anonymity said a variety of investigative and intelligence-gathering methods were being used to search for the plane across Africa. They declined to provide details.
But experts said that even in the age of satellites and other high-tech search methods, just a new coat of paint and a stolen registration number would make tracking the plane nearly impossible.
``Let's assume (the pilot) did arrive in some place like Nigeria ... a couple of thousand dollars changed hands and the aircraft is put in a hanger. The chances it is seen before satellites get a chance are zip,'' Chris Yates, editor of Jane's Aviation and Security, said in a phone interview from London.
``It's happened before in African aviation,'' he said.
The plane, with tail number N844AA, left Luanda airport May 25. The transponder was turned off, so the plane's position could not be monitored by air traffic control, U.S. officials said.
Keeping track of aircraft over Africa's vast and often desolate terrain is problematic at best anyway.
Richard Cornwell, a senior researcher at the Institute for Security Studies in Pretoria, said radar coverage of African skies is virtually nonexistent.
``Pilots talk about flying the gauntlet between South Africa and North Africa. There is no (air) control, even on commercial levels,'' he said.
After the Sept. 11 assault on the United States, fears of airborne attacks remain high.
Last month U.S. authorities said they had uncovered an al-Qaida plot to crash an explosives-laden small aircraft into the American consulate in Karachi, Pakistan. The U.S. Homeland Security Department issued an advisory saying al-Qaida had a ``fixation'' on using aircraft in attacks.
The fact that the missing 727 had been converted into a fuel tanker has added to the worries.
``If you fill that up with however many gallons of jet air fuel and stick a couple of suicide pilots on, it doesn't take Einstein to figure out you could fly into an American or British embassy or another target they want to strike against - it could be a huge bomb,'' said Yates, the Jane's editor.
U.S. analysts, however, believe the plane was stolen for a criminal gang or perhaps taken in a business or insurance dispute.
There also is the possibility of a crash. According to media reports, the plane's last radio contact was to ask for landing permission in the Seychelle islands in the Indian Ocean east of Africa, but it never arrived.
U.S. Federal Aviation Association records show the aircraft was most recently owned by Aerospace Sales and Leasing Company Inc. of Miami.
The company's listed phone number in Miami has been disconnected.
Helder Preza, director of Angola's civil aviation authority, told The Associated Press that the 727 was leased by Air Angola and had been grounded for about a year because it lacked proper documentation for its conversion to a tanker.
Preza said an American named Ben Padilla approached authorities a month before the plane disappeared, saying the owner wanted to take the plane out of Angola.
``We said no problem,'' Preza said - as long as Padilla first paid $50,000 in fees for the year the aircraft sat in Angola and provided proof Air Angola approved.
Padilla asked airport authorities to do maintenance on the plane in the meantime, Preza said, and it was during maintenance work that Padilla and another man were seen boarding the plane just before it took off.
According to Padilla's family in Florida, he was hired to repossess the jet after Air Angola failed to make lease payments. His sister, Benita Padilla-Kirkland, told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel she feared the plane had crashed or Padilla, 51, was being held against his will.
Air Angola, an airline reportedly owned by army officers, has been in financial distress since a peace accord last year ended 25 years of civil war and brought an end to lucrative military transportation contracts.
Phone calls to the Air Angola office in Luanda were not answered.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003
The UN bashing and the attempt to discredit the UN was a scary thing, and must have been particularly concerning to the international community. Is Bush piloting an "out of control super power"??...
Justice Denied at the Source
Considered Guilty Until Proved Innocent
Nat Hentoff
June 20th, 2003 4:00 PM
The clear lesson is that the government, in its understandable and laudable resolve to protect our security, cannot be relied on to protect our basic rights and liberties. —Lawrence Goldman, president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, responding to the Justice Department inspector general's report on the post-9-11 mass imprisonment of immigrants with roots in this country
We did not violate the law. —Attorney General John Ashcroft, testifying before the House Judiciary Committee on June 5
For all the growing rebellion around the country against Ashcroft's contorting of the Constitution, the conduct of his office has been most severely attacked so far in the June 2 report of Glenn A. Fine, inspector general of Ashcroft's own Department of Justice.
As usual, most of the media did not stay on this story long, but the inspector general's stingingly detailed internal exposure of Ashcroft's reckless disregard of the Bill of Rights has finally aroused disquiet among enough Democrats and Republicans to lead, they say, to sustained congressional oversight. A necessary target of scrutiny is the attorney general's sweeping, reckless violation of due process in the dragnet arrests and imprisonments (not just "detentions") in the months after 9-11. Also to be questioned is his insistence—during his June 5 testimony before the House Judiciary Committee—on demanding even more extractions of parts of the Bill of Rights.
During that Ashcroft testimony, Democratic representative William Delahunt of Massachusetts went beyond the inspector general's report to echo the apprehensions of, by now, millions of Americans about Ashcroft's further intentions of violating their privacy:
"It appears that the American people feel that the government is intent on prying into every nook and cranny of people's private lives, while at the same time doing all it can to block access to government information that would inform the American people about what is being done in their name."
Delahunt's desire for open government previously led him to support allowing television cameras in federal courtrooms. And with regard to aberrant prosecutors both inside the Justice Department and out of it, he has also worked with a bipartisan coalition to bring DNA technology into the judicial process to prevent wrong but irreversible applications of the death penalty.
Ashcroft, in his appearance before the House Judiciary Committee, enthusiastically called for expanded death penalty sentencing for those involved in terrorism that leads to fatalities. He would also like "material support" of terrorists more loosely defined.
As for Inspector General Glenn Fine's report, the essence of his extensive evidence against the attorney general is that Ashcroft and some of the members of his senior staff deliberately established a policy that, as New York Times legal affairs reporter Adam Liptak noted—paraphrasing the report—replaced "ordinary rules" with "no rules or perverse ones."
Liptak continued, "The report says that the usual presumptions of the legal system were turned upside down in the aftermath of the attacks on September 11, 2001. As a result, people detained on immigration charges were considered guilty until proved innocent and were often held for months [without bail] after they were ordered [by judges] released [or deported]." (Emphasis added.)
As you will see later in this series, in view of Ashcroft's indifference to, and ignorance of, certain highly relevant constitutional precedents during his conversations with senior officials of his staff during the days after the 9-11 attack, his approval and pursuit of this policy underline his unfitness for office then, and certainly since.
Those conversations are reported in Steven Brill's valuable book After: How America Confronted the September 12 Era, published earlier this year by Simon and Schuster. I will cite them in the next two columns.
When I called the Justice Department to congratulate Inspector General Fine for his independence as an official whistle-blower, I told his spokesman, Paul Martin, of what I had found in After. "We are familiar," said Martin, "with Mr. Brill's book."
It is useful to note that Fine is not an appointee of Ashcroft's biggest booster, George W. Bush. He was named inspector general of the Justice Department by President Clinton in 2000. (See, I actually can say something positive about the man who now, so some say, would like to be secretary-general of the UN. He couldn't be any less effective than Kofi Annan.)
As the inspector general emphasizes, hundreds of people, not yet "cleared" by the FBI and therefore presumed innocent of links to terrorism under our former system of law, were imprisoned for weeks and months—"many in extremely restrictive conditions of confinement."
In the Bureau of Prisons' Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, says the report, these conditions included " 'lockdown' for at least 23 hours per day; escort procedures that included a 'four-man hold' with handcuffs, leg irons, and heavy chains any time the detainees were moved outside their cells; and a limit of one legal telephone call per week and one social call per month."
Two lights were on in the cells of these "detainees" 24 hours a day, and some prisoners were slammed against walls by the guards. Moreover, the report notes that Justice Department officials admitted to the inspector general's office that soon after the roundup started they realized "many in the group of . . . detainees were not connected to the attacks or terrorism."
Not one of the 762 imprisoned was ever charged with a terrorism-related crime. And many were deliberately prevented from reaching attorneys. More on that next week.
Yet, as the Times reported on June 3, the inspector general's report refused to "single out for criticism Attorney General Ashcroft or specific senior department advisers, prosecutors, or FBI agents."
In a message, I asked the inspector general how he could not criticize these official abusers of the basic due process rights of those prisoners. I have yet to get an answer.
But Ashcroft's office declared, "We make no apologies for finding every legal way possible to protect the American public from further terrorist attacks." Despite "no apologies," procedural changes are promised for the next roundup of terrorism "suspects." But no punishment yet for these derelictions of duty for anyone, from Ashcroft on down.
Copyright © 2003 Village Voice Media, Inc.
Theo-neutral, more "wholesome" programming (less violence and porn) would obviously be welcome.
"Gidget Goes To Hell" - the Sequel, would be a problem... Bush and the far-right are incapable of
theo-neutral, imo...
An enormous leap of faith... I think Blix has a dry sense of humor tho...
They won't answer. Honesty has no place in politics anymore...
Hollywood Christians Issue Casting Call
Monday, June 23, 2003
By Liza Porteus
NEW YORK — Members of Congress frequently complain there's too much drugs, sex and violence in the entertainment industry. Apparently somebody in Hollywood has been listening.
A group of Christian directors, writers and producers has appealed to Congress to put its money where its mouth is and help them encourage more quality entertainment programming.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,89906,00.html
"It is sort of fascinating that you can have 100 percent certainty about weapons of mass destruction
and zero certainty of about where they are,"
Hans Blix, The Council on Foreign Relations, New York.
Bush on the aircraft carrier??.. Was that the mother of all photo opps, or what? Simply brilliant!
Richard Goldstein
Bush's Basket
Why the President Had to Show His Balls
May 21 - 27, 2003
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0321/goldstein.php
I saw this a while back but didn't have the nerve to post it.
That photo opp was so carefully crafted, one can only wonder.....
Top Gun George!..
GOP Reports Record Second Quarter Profits
http://www.theonion.com/onion3923/gop_reports_record.html
Can Bush Be Both Ignorant and a Liar?
Yes. There's no reason for Bush-bashers to choose between the two.
By Timothy Noah
Posted Monday, June 23, 2003, at 2:31 PM PT
http://slate.msn.com/id/2084730/
:~)
Reason to Deceive
WMD Lies Could Be the New Watergate
June 18 - 24, 2003
Press Clips
by Cynthia Cotts
If media companies want to boost ratings and credibility at the same time, they should follow the lead of New York Times columnists Paul Krugman and Nicholas D. Kristof and make weapons of mass destruction the top story of the summer. Not only have President Bush and his administration exaggerated the evidence that Iraq had WMD, but now that news of their lies has leaked out, the pro-war camp is spinning like mad. The odds of exposing a major cover-up are looking very good indeed.
Consider the momentum this story has picked up from the Times Op-Ed page in recent weeks. On May 30, Kristof reported that according to "a torrent" of sources, WMD intelligence was "deliberately warped . . . to mislead our elected representatives into voting to authorize [the war in Iraq]." On June 3, Krugman noted that "misrepresentation and deception are standard operating procedure for this administration," and on June 10, he demanded accountability, blasting the Bush team's m.o. as one of "cherry picking, of choosing and exaggerating intelligence that suited [their] preconceptions."
At press time, the Bush team and Tony Blair stand widely accused of intentionally publicizing bogus evidence to justify the war. Not only did Bush rely on forged documents when he made the claim in his State of the Union address that Iraq tried to purchase uranium from Niger, but, as Kristof reported on May 6 and June 13, everyone in the intelligence community knew this was a lie, including the office of Dick Cheney. With some Democrats demanding public WMD hearings, the Bush team is running scared, scheduling closed hearings and scheming to make CIA director George Tenet the fall guy.
What did the president know, and when did he know it? The refrain dates back to Watergate days, when Richard Nixon had to resign because of his lies. Just think, with gavel-to-gavel coverage, WMD hearings could be an enlightening spectacle, filling the cable channels with Watergate nostalgia while reminding the world that in America, political leaders have an obligation to tell the truth. Even lying about sex, as conservatives liked to remind us during the Clinton era, is an impeachable offense.
Now that a Republican is accused of lying to launch an endless military occupation, hawks are rushing to reassert the legitimacy of U.S. aggression. But the "bouquet of new justifications," as Maureen Dowd calls their arguments, have wilted quickly. What's the rush to find WMD? asks the Bush camp. We found other neat stuff, like torture chambers. Saddam Hussein had these weapons before, but he hid them really well—or maybe sent them to Syria. Dr. Germ and Mrs. Anthrax aren't talking, 'cause they don't want to be tried as war criminals. And besides, would Dubya lie to you?
The Bush defense begins and ends with the assertion that we're better off now that the U.S. is occupying Iraq. Questioned on June 9 about his reasons for going to war, Bush declared, "The credibility of the United States is based upon our strong desire to make the world more peaceful, and the world is now more peaceful." It is?
Some hawkish columnists invoke noble goals to justify the war, but they dodge the question of organized deception. Writing for the British Mirror on June 5, Christopher Hitchens argued that allegations of hyped evidence do not discredit regime change in Iraq, concluding that the failure to find WMD is "a good thing on the whole"—because it means Hussein has been disarmed. On June 4, New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman shrugged off WMD hype as a necessary selling technique for Bush, arguing that we hit Hussein "because we could" and that what matters is whether we succeed at building a "progressive Arab regime." In other words, the ends justify the means.
In a June 8 op-ed, Washington Post columnist Robert Kagan apologized for Bush and Blair by linking them with anyone who ever said Iraq had WMD. "If Bush and [Blair] are lying," he wrote, "they're not alone. They're part of a vast conspiratorial network of liars that includes U.N. weapons inspectors and reputable arms control experts both inside and outside the government." Post letter writers responded that the issue is not whether Iraq had WMD in the past, but whether those weapons posed an imminent threat and justified war. (Blair had endorsed bogus evidence that Hussein could deploy his arsenal in 45 minutes flat.)
Bush is so comfortable bending the truth to defend this war that he recently denied the consensus that no WMD have been found. On Polish TV last month, he said, "We've found the weapons of mass destruction. You know, we found biological laboratories. . . . And we'll find more weapons as times goes on. But for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong. We found them."
Ah, the mysterious labs, a/k/a trucks or trailers. These were introduced on May 28 by U.S. officials who called them "the strongest evidence yet" that Iraq was hiding a biological warfare program. But as a former UN inspector told The Washington Post, "the government's finding is based on eliminating any possible alternative explanation for the trucks, which is a controversial methodology under any circumstances."
If wishful thinking fails, hawks can always fall back on blaming the messenger. In a June 10 op-ed in the New York Post, the Heritage Foundation's Peter Brookes suggested that if intelligence analysts felt bullied by the Bush administration to cook the evidence, it was their fault for not resisting the pressure. The same day, the Post's John Podhoretz weighed in with the warning that anyone who accuses Bush of planting WMD evidence will be exceeding the bounds of "taste, logic, good sense or reason."
The most cynical strategy involves expressing disbelief that our leaders are capable of lying. "Does anybody believe that President Bush [and his military brass] ordered U.S. soldiers outside Baghdad to don heavy, bulky chemical-weapon suits in scorching heat . . . to maintain a charade?" wrote Charles Krauthammer in The Washington Post on June 13. On June 4, Brookes explained why Bush and company are too smart to lie: If they intentionally deceived the public, "not finding the weapons would then spell big trouble for administration officials. Why tell a lie they knew would eventually come to light?" The New York Post's Deroy Murdock chimed in on June 14 with the opposite argument—these guys are actually too dumb to lie. "Were Bush and Blair clever enough [to have hyped WMD]," wrote Murdock, "they should be crafty enough by now to have 'discovered' enough botulinum to have justified hostilities."
In retrospect, the Bush administration's most publicized war stories have all been the products of smoke and mirrors. Contrary to the initial hype, the Hussein "decapitation strike" turned up no bodies and no bunkers. Chemical Ali walked out alive. Jessica Lynch was never shot, stabbed, or tortured by Iraqis. And despite all the hot tips Ahmad Chalabi spoon-fed to New York Times reporter Judith Miller, the WMD search teams have not found a single silver bullet or smoking gun. The war on Iraq is a Byzantine puzzle that begins and ends with a lie. The media have an obligation to expose it.
Copyright © 2003 Village Voice Media, Inc., 36 Cooper Square, New York, NY 10003 The Village Voice and Voice are registered trademarks. All rights reserved.
I agree! Bush is rather dull. But who do we give credit too -- the Weekly Standard, the American Enterprise Institute (Cheney's personal fave!..)? Or maybe the Hudson Institute??...
One thing's for sure -- Dubya ain't no stinkin' thinker!
I agree! How dare they! ???
Only Admin cronies are entitled to "rebuilding" windfalls!
Carlyle Group has a relationship with the Bin Laden Family, don't they?..
Bin Laden's are builders, right??
There you go!! An Arab business in the "rebuilding" effort - the Bin Ladens!!...
Arab firms seek bigger share of Iraq rebuilding
June 24, 2003
By Reuters
By Suleiman al-Khalidi
Dead Sea, Jordan - Arab businesses eyeing lucrative work in postwar Iraq have begun seeking orders for reconstruction projects, hoping to pick up business from US firms set to win the lion's share of deals.
Regional businessmen at a World Economic Forum meeting in Jordan said they expected a fraction of subcontracts from Bechtel, the US company awarded an initial $680-million contract to start rebuilding Iraq's infrastructure after the war that ousted Saddam Hussein.
But business sources said conglomerates such as Saudi Arabia's Al-Zamil group and Kuwait's Kharafi had already made preliminary contact with established Iraqi contractors to explore joint ventures
Not going to bring every single labourer they need
.
Bechtel has said it plans to subcontract 90 percent of the work it has been hired for - rebuilding ports, power networks, airports, schools, roads and other facilities - and that it hopes to give plenty of business to Iraqi firms.
The United States has allocated $2.4-billion for Iraqi reconstruction over the next two years, according to the US Agency for International Development.
Many firms at the Jordan meeting said Iraq's reconstruction needs could absorb much of the region's unused capacity. Some count on lower transport costs and long-standing commercial ties with Iraqi businesses from before the war to get a foot in the door.
"Right now all the projects are being channeled through American companies and we are in contact with Bechtel and other US firms to sell our products into Iraq," said Waheeb Linjawi, group president of Jeddah-based Saudi Cable Co, the largest Saudi producer of power and utility cables
It has been a closed club until now
.
"The contracts may be eventually awarded to US firms but they will outsource from local areas. That's the hope."
Arab economic policymakers say much also depends on how well big Arab firms perform.
"There is a great deal of potential because nobody is going to bring everything from elsewhere if it is available closer and with competitive prices," said Abdul Latif al-Hamad, head of the Kuwaiti-based Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development.
"Any company from the United States is not going to bring every single labourer they need and every single piece of material, they have to find closer sources of labour and materials and more competitive prices."
The businessmen see US companies getting the "spoils of war", with regional firms subcontracted only for specialist work that cannot be given to others, such as a recent USAID contract to a Dubai-based firm to help reopen the Iraqi port of Umm Qasr.
"So far we have not seen the excitement or the openness from the Americans that we really wanted to have," said Sheikh Khaled bin Zayed al Nehayan, chairman of the Dubai-based Bin Zayed Group, a real estate and trading firm.
"That is how most of the deals have been structured... It has been a closed club until now... Is it going to change or is it because its just close to two months from the finishing of the war? We have to wait and see," he added.
American officials say early contracts to US firms were awarded quickly to restore basic needs in the immediate aftermath of war.
"There's been a lot of focus on the early contracts... They were given to large American contractors to make sure we would be able to move quickly to restore electric power and operation of ports and provision of water supply," said Alan Larson, US undersecretary of state for economic, business and agricultural affairs.
©2003 Business Report.
What Did He Know and When Did He Know It?
By Robert Scheer, AlterNet
June 18, 2003
What did the president know and when did he know it?
The answer to that question forced the resignation of Richard Nixon as he was about to be impeached.
Now, with President Bush facing that same question, congressional Republicans have circled the wagons to prevent a public hearing on whether intelligence was distorted by the White House to convince us of the need for war. Why? Because public hearings could lead to public demands for impeachment. Sound far-fetched? Not when you consider the gravity of the charge.
"To put it bluntly," former Nixon White House counsel John Dean wrote on the legal Web site FindLaw on June 6, "if Bush has taken Congress and the nation into war based on bogus information, he is cooked. Manipulation or deliberate misuse of national security intelligence data, if proven, could be 'a high crime' under the Constitution's impeachment clause. It would also be a violation of federal criminal law, including the broad federal anti-conspiracy statute, which renders it a felony 'to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose.'."
Of course, intelligence data is often open to interpretation, and some political distortion is probably inevitable. Consider, however, just one of the recent revelations about how Iraq weapons intelligence was handled by the Bush administration and you'll start to see a disturbing pattern of cynical mendacity.
Call it the "Case of the Phantom Uranium." It starts with a document, later exposed by United Nations inspectors as a crude forgery, that was sold by an African diplomat to Italian intelligence, which passed it to the British. It seemed to implicate Saddam Hussein in an attempt to buy uranium from Africa. This apparently proved too juicy a tidbit for the hawks in the Bush administration to resist. They knew that the specter of Iraqi nukes – which U.N. inspectors would establish as baseless – would scare Americans much more than talk of mustard gas, and scaring Americans is this administration's M.O.
Thus in his 2003 State of the Union address, the president intoned that "the British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium in Africa." Scary stuff. Problem was, the document was signed by an official who had given up his post a decade earlier, and the CIA had told the White House the story did not check out.
On Friday, the Knight Ridder newspaper chain reported that, according to a senior CIA official, on March 9, 2002, a full 10 months before the speech, the White House was duly informed that an investigation, including an agent traveling to Africa to verify the story, had found no basis for the document. Three senior administration officials told the Knight Ridder reporter that Vice President Dick Cheney and officials on the National Security Council staff and at the Pentagon ignored the CIA's reservations and argued that the allegation should be included in the case against Hussein.
This is just one example of the administration's manipulation of intelligence in justifying a war that already has killed thousands of people and continues to take the lives of several Americans each week. It is exceedingly odd that the same congressional Republicans who impeached Bill Clinton for dissembling in a sexual scandal find none of this worthy of a full public hearing. To pacify a growing number of critics, they have instead scheduled a secret and limited inquiry.
Perhaps the Republicans think they can stall until fragments of evidence of weapons of mass destruction are found, which would clear Bush's name. However, that won't do the trick. The president persistently claimed that the war was necessitated by the imminent threat of deployed weapons – "a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles," as the president put it, capable of dispersing a huge existing arsenal of chemical and biological weapons, including "missions targeting the United States."
Instead, almost three months after we invaded Iraq, the United States and Britain have yet to find anything of the sort.
"Frankly, we expected to find large warehouses full of chemical or biological weapons, or delivery systems," Army Col. John Connell, who heads the hunt for those AWOL weapons in Iraq, said in Sunday's Los Angeles Times. "At this point, we're getting fairly sure we're not going to find a full-up production facility. We're going to find little pieces."
We now know that the threat of deployed WMD was a blatant falsehood. What has not been established is whether the president was in on the lie. If he was, he should be impeached.
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"Evidence"?? -- Demanding the Truth
By Rep. Henry Waxman
June 12, 2003
A June 10 letter to Condoleeza Rice from Rep. Henry Waxman, the ranking member of the House Committee on Government Reform.
The Honorable Condoleezza Rice
Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs
The White House
Washington, DC 20500
Dear Dr. Rice:
Since March 17, 2003, I have been trying without success to get a direct answer to one simple question: Why did President Bush cite forged evidence about Iraq's nuclear capabilities in his State of the Union address?
Although you addressed this issue on Sunday on both Meet the Press and This Week with George Stephanopoulos, your comments did nothing to clarify this issue. In fact, your responses contradicted other known facts and raised a host of new questions.
During your interviews, you said the Bush Administration welcomes inquiries into this matter. Yesterday, The Washington Post also reported that Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet has agreed to provide "full documentation" of the intelligence information "in regards to Secretary Powell's comments, the president's comments and anybody else's comments." Consistent with these sentiments, I am writing to seek further information about this important matter.
Bush Administration Knowledge of Forgeries
The forged documents in question describe efforts by Iraq to obtain uranium from an African country, Niger. During your interviews over the weekend, you asserted that no doubts or suspicions about these efforts or the underlying documents were communicated to senior officials in the Bush Administration before the President's State of the Union address. For example, when you were asked about this issue on Meet the Press, you made the following statement:
We did not know at the time – no one knew at the time, in our circles – maybe someone knew down in the bowels of the agency, but no one in our circles knew that there were doubts and suspicions that this might be a forgery. Of course, it was information that was mistaken.
Similarly, when you appeared on This Week, you repeated this statement, claiming that you made multiple inquiries of the intelligence agencies regarding the allegation that Iraq sought to obtain uranium from an African country. You stated:
George, somebody, somebody down may have known. But I will tell you that when this issue was raised with the intelligence community... the intelligence community did not know at that time, or at levels that got to us, that this, that there were serious questions about this report.
Your claims, however, are directly contradicted by other evidence. Contrary to your assertion, senior Administration officials had serious doubts about the forged evidence well before the President's State of the Union address. For example, Greg Thielmann, Director of the Office of Strategic, Proliferation, and Military Issues in the State Department, told Newsweek last week that the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) had concluded the documents were "garbage." As you surely know, INR is part of what you call "the intelligence community." It is headed by an Assistant Secretary of State, Carl Ford; it reports directly to the Secretary of State; and it was a full participant in the debate over Iraq's nuclear capabilities. According to Newsweek:
"When I saw that, it really blew me away," Thielmann told Newsweek. Thielmann knew about the source of the allegation. The CIA had come up with some documents purporting to show Saddam had attempted to buy up to 500 tons of uranium oxide from the African country of Niger. INR had concluded that the purchases were implausible - and made that point clear to Powell's office. As Thielmann read that the president had relied on these documents to report to the nation, he thought, "Not that stupid piece of garbage. My thought was, how did that get into the speech?"
Moreover, New York Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof has reported that the Vice President's office was aware of the fraudulent nature of the evidence as early as February 2002 - nearly a year before the President gave his State of the Union address. In his column, Mr. Kristof reported:
I'm told by a person involved in the Niger caper that more than a year ago the vice president's office asked for an investigation of the uranium deal, so a former U.S. ambassador to Africa was dispatched to Niger. In February 2002, according to someone present at the meetings, that envoy reported to the C.I.A. and State Department that the information was unequivocally wrong and that the documents had been forged.
The envoy reported, for example, that a Niger minister whose signature was on one of the documents had in fact been out of office for more than a decade.... The envoy's debunking of the forgery was passed around the administration and seemed to be accepted - except that President Bush and the State Department kept citing it anyway.
"It's disingenuous for the State Department people to say they were bamboozled because they knew about this for a year," one insider said.
When you were asked about Mr. Kristof's account, you did not deny his reporting. Instead, you conceded that "the Vice President's office may have asked for that report."
It is also clear that CIA officials doubted the evidence. The Washington Post reported on March 22 that CIA officials "communicated significant doubts to the administration about the evidence." The Los Angeles Times reported on March 15 that "the CIA first heard allegations that Iraq was seeking uranium from Niger in late 2001," when "the existence of the documents was reported to [the CIA] second- or third-hand." The Los Angeles Times quoted a CIA official as saying: "We included that in some of our reporting, although it was all caveated because we had concerns about the accuracy of that information."
With all respect, this is not a situation like the pre-9/11 evidence that al-Qaeda was planning to hijack planes and crash them into buildings. When you were asked about this on May 17, 2002, you said:
As you might imagine... a lot of things are prepared within agencies. They're distributed internally, they're worked internally. It's unusual that anything like that would get to the president. He doesn't recall seeing anything. I don't recall seeing anything of this kind.
That answer may be given more deference when the evidence in question is known only by a field agent in an FBI bureau in Phoenix, Arizona, whose suspicions are not adequately understood by officials in Washington. But it is simply not credible here. Contrary to your public statements, senior officials in the intelligence community in Washington knew the forged evidence was unreliable before the President used the evidence in the State of the Union address.
Other Evidence
In addition to denying that senior officials were aware that the President was citing forged evidence, you also claimed (1) "there were also other sources that said that there were, the Iraqis were seeking yellowcake - uranium oxide - from Africa" and (2) "there were other attempts to get yellowcake from Africa."
This answer does not explain the President's statement in the State of the Union address. In his State of the Union address, the President referred specifically to the evidence from the British. He stated: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." Presumably, the President would use the best available evidence in his State of the Union address to Congress and the nation. It would make no sense for him to cite forged evidence obtained from the British if, in fact, the United States had other reliable evidence that he could have cited.
Moreover, contrary to your assertion, there does not appear to be any other specific and credible evidence that Iraq sought to obtain uranium from an African country. The Administration has not provided any such evidence to me or my staff despite our repeated requests. To the contrary, the State Department wrote me that the "other source" of this claim was another Western European ally. But as the State Department acknowledged in its letter, "the second Western European government had based its assessment on the evidence already available to the U.S. that was subsequently discredited."
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) also found no other evidence indicating that Iraq sought to obtain uranium from Niger. The evidence in U.S. possession that Iraq had sought to obtain uranium from Niger was transmitted to the IAEA. After reviewing all the evidence provided by the United States, the IAEA reported: "we have to date found no evidence or plausible indication of the revival of a nuclear weapons programme in Iraq." Ultimately, the IAEA concluded: "these specific allegations are unfounded."
Questions
As the discussion above indicates, your answers on the Sunday talk shows conflict with other reports and raise many new issues. To help address these issues, I request answers to the following questions:
1. On Meet the Press, you said that "maybe someone knew down in the bowels of the agency" that the evidence cited by the President about Iraq's attempts to obtain uranium from Africa was suspect. Please identify the individual or individuals in the Administration who, prior to the President's State of the Union address, had expressed doubts about the validity of the evidence or the credibility of the claim.
2. Please identify any individuals in the Administration who, prior to the President's State of the Union address, were briefed or otherwise made aware that an individual or individuals in the Administration had expressed doubts about the validity of the evidence or the credibility of the claim.
3. On This Week, you said there was other evidence besides the forged evidence that Iraq was trying to obtain uranium from Africa. Please provide this other evidence.
4. When you were asked about reports that Vice President Cheney sent a former ambassador to Niger to investigate the evidence, you stated "the Vice President's office may have asked for that report." In light of this comment, please address:
(a) Whether Vice President Cheney or his office requested an investigation into claims that Iraq may have attempted to obtain nuclear material from Africa, and when any such request was made;
(b) Whether a current or former U.S. ambassador to Africa, or any other current or former government official or agent, traveled to Niger or otherwise investigated claims that Iraq may have attempted to obtain nuclear material from Niger; and
(c) What conclusions or findings, if any, were reported to the Vice President, his office, or other U.S. officials as a result of the investigation, and when any such conclusions or findings were reported.
Conclusion
On Sunday, you stated that "there is now a lot of revisionism that says, there was disagreement on this data point, or disagreement on that data point." I disagree strongly with this characterization. I am not raising questions about the validity of an isolated "data point," and the issue is not whether the war in Iraq was justified or not.
What I want to know is the answer to a simple question: Why did the President use forged evidence in the State of the Union address? This is a question that bears directly on the credibility of the United States, and it should be answered in a prompt and forthright manner, with full disclosure of all the relevant facts.
Thank you for your assistance in this matter.
Sincerely,
Henry A. Waxman
Ranking Minority Member
© 2003 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved. Reproduction by Syndication Service only.
Cargo Ship Raided by Greece Was Going to Sudanese Capital
By FRANK BRUNI
THENS, June 23 — A ship raided and impounded late Sunday night by Greek authorities was carrying 680 metric tons of explosives through Greek waters, Greek officials said today. The 230-foot vessel was destined for Sudan, a country that has served as a base for terrorist groups, they added.
Those officials also said paperwork aboard the ship listed the recipient of the explosives as a chemical company in Khartoum, the Sudanese capital, that does not exist.
Those disclosures intensified both the concern and the mystery surrounding the ship, the Baltic Sky, which was boarded after Greek officials received tips from unspecified foreign intelligence services that they should question its seven-member crew.
Greek officials said they communicated with the crew — five men from Ukraine and two from Azerbaijan — and raided it only when no one on board would provide information about its cargo and destination.
The boat apparently picked up its potentially deadly cargo in Tunisia about six weeks ago, officials said today. But they could not say whether it was part of any terrorist plot.
Thus far, crew members have been charged with the unauthorized possession and transport of explosives across Greek territory.
The Greek merchant marine minister, George Anomeritis, said today that the crew "should have reported that it was sailing with a cargo that was like an atomic bomb."
The actual explosives were mostly dynamite, officials said.
The Baltic Sky was off the western coast of Greece, about 150 miles from Athens, when it was raided. But Greek officials described the boat's route as suspicious.
It left Albania in late April and picked up the explosives in Tunisia on May 12. It was spotted in Istanbul toward the end of May, and then, more recently, entered Greek waters.
"No one would call legal a cargo that is going around the Mediterranean for a month," Mr. Anomeritis told reporters.
The ship was flying a Comoros flag, which maritime officials called "a flag of convenience," meaning that a ship registered in Comoros avoids certain regulations, taxes and background checks.
Greek officials began keeping an eye on the ship five days ago, when they said they received alerts from foreign intelligence officials. But they said the Baltic Sky was not on a roster of suspicious vessels that the United States has issued to its allies and that NATO is tracking as part of its attempts to prevent terrorism.
Over recent weeks, there have been growing concerns about terrorist attacks, following bombings in Saudi Arabia and in Morocco.
Sudan was a base for Osama bin Laden in the early 1990's and has been accused by American government officials of sponsoring terrorism, although it has made efforts recently to show that it does not.
Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company
You CAN'T be serious, or THAT naive -- are you??
Hamas is a violent, brutal terrorist organization. Or hadn't you heard??..
Direct funding of charitable orgs?? -- Or don't bother responding...
Hamas !!! Hezbollah & Islamic Jihad too! And you?? :)